"Tesco will still need to put in for planning permission for things such as an ATM sign and illuminated signage but that goes through the normal planning process and there's not normally much reason to refuse them.

"Technically, they could turn up this afternoon and gut the place if they wanted to."

Locals started a campaign to save the Maiden Over in July when Tesco confirmed it was planning to lease the building from pub company Enterprise Inns.

Wokingham's planning committee went against officer recommendations to impose an Article 4 Direction, at a meeting in August, which would have required a planning application to be submitted to convert the pub into a supermarket.

Permission is not normally required from local councils under current planning laws.

However, councillors were told last night that Tesco's legal representatives had written to the authority warning the reasons for serving the Article 4 did not meet the legal tests and inviting them to reconsider their position.

The council sought legal advice from a Queen's Counsel who agreed the authority had been wrong to impose an Article 4.

Ward councillor David Chopping, who had campaigned to save the pub, posted on the 'Maiden It's Not Over' Facebook page: "The cost to the council of not following offcers' and counsel's advice would have been a judicial review which, in counsel's opinion we would have lost.

"Tesco would have been entitled to compensation expected to run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

"Thus the committee had no choice."

Mr Taylor said he did not blame the committee for making the decision and admitted he had been "pleasantly surprised" when the committee originally agreed the Article 4.

But he said: "At local planning level Wokingham Borough Council and other councils don't have robust enough policies regarding the protection of community facilities, such as pubs and we will be urging them in the next few weeks to adopt tougher regulatory framework to try and protect pubs."